UNICEF, Snapchat highlight plight of children affected by Boko Haram

LONDON: UNICEF has recruited Snapchat users to launch a campaign designed to raise awareness of the horrific impact of the Boko Haram crisis on children in Nigeria.

Snapchat members are redrawing pictures by some children forced to flee their homes.

The campaign, which comes a year after more than 200 schoolgirls were abducted by Islamist militants from Chibok, is designed to equate the transient nature of Snapchat content with the notion of the childhoods of the victims disappearing.

The children’s organization is working with Snapchat artists including Shaun McBride, also known as Shonduras, to describe the plight of children, using drawings from kids affected by the conflict.

Users have been asked to add @UNICEF to a "snap" and tell the charity what they would miss most if they were to be forced to flee their home.

For those people not on Snapchat, UNICEF is asking them to use Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram and the hashtag #BringBackOurChildhood. UNICEF has also created a campaign Tumblr.

About 800,000 children have been forced to flee their homes as a result of the conflict between Boko Haram and military and civilian defense groups, according to figures from UNICEF.

"The abduction of more than 200 girls in Chibok is only one of endless tragedies being replicated on an epic scale across Nigeria and the region," said Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF’s regional director for West and Central Africa. "Scores of girls and boys have gone missing in Nigeria – abducted, recruited by armed groups, attacked, used as weapons, or forced to flee violence. They have the right to get their childhoods back."